32 Days to Go - Flower Girl Hairband

The Flower Girl's Hairband

I bought this headband at a local fabric store. I like that it already has crushed tulle in it, It is ivory, and it had little pearl beads in the center. 

I clipped off the pearl beads to use later. 

I wanted to add this applique that I made a few months ago. The flower matches the bridesmaids fabric, and being me, everything has to tie together :-)

I clipped off the excess crushed tulle. 

I sewed it onto the flower petals. 

Mr. Bojangles did a photo bomb. 

The stitches under the petals are not pretty, nor are they perfect, but our flower girl is four years old, and I only need the applique to stay put. 

When I finished, I felt like there was something missing. 

I had a few more pearl beads, and I used those to accent the petals. 

The finished product! I hope she likes it and I really hope it works out!

After this, I settled down to watch the Academy Awards with my fiance, while working on my next project:

Our Embroidered Guest Book! 

Sweetest project ever!!

33 Days to Go - Planting Snapdragons

Planting Snapdragons

My fiance and I spent our Sunday at my parent's lakehouse helping them prepare it for the big day!

With a winter storm hitting tonight, we had to get a lot done, and there wasn't much time because of the looming rainclouds. I bought 6 flats of mounding snapdragons (aka 216 flowers) to plant in the front yard.

It was definitely a messy and muddy project because it had rained all night, and the ground was soaked.

I'm not scared of a little dirt though. I had to move the mulch to find the dirt. 

I used a hand hoe to make a hole just deep and wide enough to fit the flower roots.

It was so peaceful to sit there and plant growing things. I had my headphones in, and I was singing some of my favorite relaxing songs. 

Look how pretty the flower is already!

I dropped each one in the hole, and padded it down to make sure it was good.

After recovering it with mulch, it was nice to see it looking so settled!

34 Days to Go - Detailing the Veil

Detailing the Veil

This has been a busy weekend. Early this morning, I woke up and decided to start on adding detail to my veil. I bought about ten yards of 2" wide lace, that I cut down to 1" (trimmed off the excess, but I didn't take any pictures beforehand). 

Not exactly neat, but this is a ten yard long ribbon of beautiful lace.

I was so thrilled to finally find something that matched the simple, yet elegant look I was looking for.  

This process was a little nerve wracking because I wasn't sure how to start, and I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I was worried I would have to remake another veil. 

 A very wise woman gave me some pointers about what to use on the lightweight crushed tulle, and helped me to locate the lace. She gave me two rolls of stitch witchery or fusible bonding web.

I started by cutting the edge of the lace to make it ween to the corner of the veil. I added the bonding tape between the lace and the crushed tulle, and slowly worked my way down the veil. 

I gently laid the lace on top, and ironed it at semi-high heat. The bonding tape disappears when it melts so it was nice to not have to worry about it showing The lace and tulle became a little bit stiff when ironing it, but I made sure to not allow any folds, or keep the iron in one place for too long. 

Once I got the hang of it, it went by much more quickly than I expected. Way more quickly than if I had hand sewn it. I actually ended up putting the lace further into the veil rather than right on the edge. This gave me a little more room to work with, making the process less tedious.

Once I finished ironing the edges, I went back and slowly clipped off the excess tulle under the lace, being careful not to clip the lace edges. 

My cat, Mr. Bojangles decided this was the moment for his curiosity to peak...

Such a sly little kitten...

If you see, his mouth is open around the veil. After this picture, he had to leave the room. 

After I trimmed the edges, I noticed that the top of the lace was not bonded, and I didn't want it to fold over like an uncut hem does. I took the bonding tape and cut it into two, making strips half the width of the original. 

I added these to the tops of the lace, and ironed around the whole veil again.

  

I put the elastic back around the clip that will go above my updo. 

Here it is: 

I'm thrilled because when I put it on, I felt like it really did give much more of a decisive end. Before, you couldn't tell where the dress ended and the veil began. Mrs. Mari and my sister were definitely right about that last necessary detail! 

41 Days to Go - Guest Bag Goodies

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

On Valentine's Day this year, my stepmom and I set to work making chocolate covered pretzel rods for our out of town guests goodie bags. 

Making them on Valentine's Day was totally appropriate too!

First, I used a double boiler to melt the chocolate... 

Initially, I added butter (in place of Crisco) to make the chocolate smoother, but it ended up making the chocolate gritty, so I started over, adding nothing. 

I just waited until the water in the bottom pot was boiling, then added a few bars of Almond Bark to the top pot, stirring occassionally.

We had four bags of pretzel rods to use, and we only needed 100 or 2 per bag for 50 bags. 

We took out all of the broken rods and placed them in a bowl to use later. 

After melting some of the chocolate, we used a tall vase to dip the rods in the chocolate.  

We didn't roll the rods in the sprinkles because the chocolate was still wet. Instead, we sprinkled the sprinkles onto the rod over the pan, and placed them on wax paper to dry. 

We did this for 50 rods using the chocolate bark, then added some broken pretzel rods to the pot, dipping them completely, and placing them on the parchment. 

I went back and added sprinkles just to the top. 

Colorful sprinkles make me so happy! :-)

The next batch was made using white chocolate almond bark.

Same process: Dipping, sprinkling, and laying out to dry.

I decided that I wanted to add a drizzle to the rods as well, and so I set to work on this step:

It was so fun! I used the leftover white chocolate to slowly 'scribble' drizzled chocolate in long lines over the drying pieces. 

I melted another two pieces of chocolate almond bark, and did the same for the white chocolate rods. 

Then we had to wait until were all dry, 

which took maybe ten minutes after we cleaned all of the pots and pans.

We used pretzel rod bags to place one chocolate, one white chocolate rod in each bag, and added twist ties to them. 

They look professional, adorable, and delicious! 

We also put them in food saver containers to preserve them until the wedding weekend, 

so they will be ready to go!

Andrew's wedding shoes are all picked out... minus the white socks of course :-)

Currently working on labels - These will go on the Moon Pies packages!

Sweet Valentine's Day flowers from my beloved man!

He even got Mr. Bojangles a new bear to replace the one he got me last year: 

This year, Mr. Bojangles wanted to make sure his bear got cleaned:

Happy Valentine's Day!